James Jabara

First American jet ace, USAF F-86 Sabre pilot

With family roots in the village of Merjayoun, Lebanon,
standing only 5
feet, 5 inches tall, and needing to wear glasses, James Jabara was an
unlikely candidate to become a hotshot American fighter pilot. But he
was, and he was one of the hottest, his country's first jet ace, and a
triple ace in Korea.

In the Air Force community, if not to the American
public, he was a legend. One night in 1953, a young pilot was ordered
to fly Jabara into his base.

He zipped out in a T-33 and
picked up his
famous passenger, who promptly stowed his gear in the way of the
ejection seat and lit up a cigar. But the young pilot didn't object.

Flamboyant and successful hotshots like Jabara could
still disregard the rules in those days, when what you did in the
cockpit counted more than what you did behind the desk. As John
Sherwood explains in his excellent book about the USAF jet pilots in
Korea, Officers
in Flight Suits:

"This was 'flight suit attitude', ... a
sense of self-confidence and pride that verged on arrogance ... the
aircraft of preference was the high-performance, single-seat fighter
... This culture placed a premium on cockiness and informality. A
flight suit officer spent more time in a flight suit than in a uniform.
In his world, status was based upon flying ability, not degrees, rank,
or officer skills." A fascinating book on the Korean War fighter
pilots, check
it out at Amazon.com.

Born in Muskogee, Oklahoma on October 10, 1923, and raised in Wichita,
Kansas, Jabara reflected the hard work ethic and patriotism typical of
first-generation Americans. He worked in his family's grocery store and
earned the rank of Eagle Scout. In World War Two, he entered officers'
flight school as a teenager and earned his wings in 1943. He flew over
100 combat missions in a Mustang, with the 363rd Fighter Group, (9th
Air Force) over Europe. He was credited with 1.5 kills in the summer of
1944, earning him a Distinguished Flying Cross. An Oak Leaf Cluster was
added to it in 1945. After the war, he attended Tactical Air School at
Tyndall Air Force Base. He qualified on the F-80 in 1948 and the U.S. Air
Force's latest fighter F-86A in 1949, and was assigned to the 4th
Fighter Interceptor Wing (4th FIW)

The 4th FIW, equipped with the new F-86A Sabre jet,
began operating in Korea in December 1950. The 334th Fighter
Interceptor Squadron (334th FIS) of the 4th FIW had been flying from
Kimpo, South Korea in early 1951. From there the F-86s didn't have
enough range to fly any further than Pyongyang. Then in March, 1951,
the 334th FIS moved northward to Suwon, permitting its F-86s to fly up
to MiG Alley and the Yalu River.
Captain Jabara, flying with the 334th FIS, racked up his first kill
in April 3, 1951, during a big air battle in which three MiGs were
downed. Jabara added a second a few days later.

On April 12, he was involved in one of the biggest
aerial melees of the Korean War.
Some 48 B-29s from the 19th, 98th and 307th Bomb Groups went against
Antung and the Sinuiju bridges. F-84 Thunderjets of the 27th FEG served
as screen while F-86 Sabres of the 4th FIG provided high cover. Over 70
MiGs jumped American air forces. In the ensuing battle, altogether 10
MiGs were claimed: 4 by F-86 pilots: Jabara, Lt. Col. Bruce Hinton,
Capt. Howard Lane, and Col. John
Meyer, and 6 more by B-29 gunners. But the cost was heavy - three
B-29s went down; more were turned back with heavy damage.
By the 22nd of April, Jabara had shot down four MiGs and was the
leading American scorer. As the 334th rotated to Japan, Jabara was
temporarily assigned to the 335th, so he could get a chance at making
ace.

Jet Ace

On May 20, 1951, the 4th FIW flew a standard
fighter sweep over Sinuiju, four flights of six ships hoping to lure
the MiGs up for a dogfight. About 27,000 feet over Sinuiju, they made
contact with the MiGs and Lt. Col. Ben Emmert, leading the two "Awning"
flights ordered "Drop tanks!" Just like the P-51s and P-38s of World
War Two, the F-86s needed to lose their tanks for maximum combat speed
and maneuverability. Standing orders required any Sabre pilot to head
for home if he couldn't shake his tanks. (The lesson of Tommy McGuire had been well learned.)

Captain Jabara punched out his tanks but only the
left one dropped away. The right tank held fast. Disregarding orders
and his Sabre's impaired capabilities, he engaged the MiGs in a head-on
pass without any hits. As turned to pursue, his wingman called out
three more MiGs behind him. Turning as tightly as the Sabre and his
consciousness would allow, he got behind a MiG and started a turning
duel. At 25,000 feet he found the range, opened up, and ripped into the
MiG fuselage and left wing with a deadly hail of .50 caliber fire from
his six Brownings.

The MiG-15 flamed, snap rolled, and dived down;
Jabara watched in fascination. About halfway down, the Communist pilot
bailed out a few seconds before his plane exploded. Anxious to confirm
his kill, Jabara also dived down low enough to photograph the
descending pilot with his gun camera.

Above, the battle raged - as 50 MiGs
swarmed around
28 Sabres. As he roared back up to altitude, he lost track of his
wingman, but soon found six MiGs. He latched onto the tail of the
trailing aircraft. Despite violently evasive maneuvers, the MiG pilot
couldn't shake Jabara, who fired two bursts. One went high, but the
other caught him in the fuselage. The plane began to pour smoke and
lose altitude. As Jabara followed his second victim down to 6,000 feet
where the Soviet plane broke up. Suddenly the other MiGs turned the
tables and began firing at Jabara.
Again the hung tanks impaired his Sabre's flying ability, and the MiGs
closed in. As their gunfire hit home, it sounded to Jabara like a
popcorn machine running right next to him in the cockpit. His wingman,
having his own problems, couldn't clear his tail.
Jabara dodged and twisted his sluggish F-86.

From above, two F-86s spotted Jabara's single F-86,
obviously in serious trouble. After a brief radio call, the two
Americans cleared the MiGs from his tail, and the three headed back to
base at K-13. Now credited with six kills, he was the first jet-vs.-jet
ace in history (the German Me-262 jet aces had scored on prop-driven
planes). Col. John Meyer, CO 4th FIW, awarded him a DFC and promptly
chewed him out for getting into combat with a hung tank.

The release of Soviet records in the 1990's has
permitted us to get a look at the other side of American claims. I
received the following e-mail from Sr. Diego Zampini, an Argentine
expert on the Korean Air War:

It is highly likely that
Captain James Jabara did NOT become the first Korean War ace and the
"First jet-vs-jet ace" on 20 May 1951. According to an article written
by two Russian historians, Leonid Krylov and Yuri Tepsurkayev, Three out of One
Thousand, only four of his victims to that date could be confirmed.

All three MiG kills claimed by
USAF Sabres on 3 April 1951 were confirmed by Russian sources (So,
Jabara’s first kill is fully confirmed).

But there were no Soviet losses on
10 April, the date of Jabara’s second official kill, and no Chinese
MiGs were in the air. Regarding 12 April 1951, during the huge battle
between B-29s and their escort fighters against the MiGs of Antung,
only one MiG was lost, against the four claimed by Sabre pilots. So,
only one is confirmed, and it is not sure that Jabara scored that kill.
The same happened on 22 April, the date of Jabara’s fourth official
kill, only one MiG out of four claimed was actually downed, and again
it is not sure that Jabara scored that kill. Even if the single MiG
losses on 12 and 22 April were scored by Jabara, his tally on 22 April
wouldn’t have been four, but three enemy aircraft downed.

Regarding 20 May 1951 his first
kill of the day is fully confirmed. His victim was Captain Nazarkin
(196 IAP, 324 IAD). His second combatant escaped, seriously damaged,
but he escaped. So his score by the end of 1951 was only
four. Additionally, the MiG-15 pilot who attacked Jabara was
Sr. Lt. V.N. Alfeyev (196 IAP, 324 IAD) who also reached ace status,
with 7 kills - including Jabara. Evidently the US pilot left the aerial
battlefield so damaged that Alfeyev sincerely thought that he shot him
down.

There is no doubt that Jabara
became a high-scoring ace in his second tour in 1953, nor that he was
an outstanding fighter pilot, but unfortunately he wasn’t the first
Korean War ace nor the "First jet-vs-jet ace." Check out the
article Three
out of One Thousand, in the www.korean-war.com
site.

At the time, he was lauded at the Korean War's first
ace. The Air Force brass ordered him home, where he experienced a brief
celebrity: pictures in the newsreels, parade in Wichita, and newspaper
interviews. He then began training other fighter pilots at Scott AFB in
Illinois.

But Jabara "always liked excitement" and was back
in Korea by early 1953. He continued shooting down MiGs. On May 26,
with the 334th FIS, he was leading a flight of four Sabres when he
spotted 16 MiGs over the Yalu. Leading his flight into the enemy jets,
he scattered them, and then went after a couple laggards. He shot one
down and forced the other into a terminal spin, thus scoring his 8th
and 9th victories. By the end of June, he had run his tally to 14, and
he shot down his 15th, and last, MiG on July 15, 1953. He was the
second-highest scoring American ace of the Korean conflict.

Later promoted to Colonel, he was on his way to a
combat assignment in Vietnam in 1966. But on November 17, 1966, he and his daughter were
killed in the Volkswagen she was driving. He was 43.
Sources:

Korean
War Aces by Robert F. Dorr et al, an Osprey 'Aircraft of the
Aces' series